Circuit Training 119: Paul Currie's Newest and Greatest, in Galway

The acclaimed absurdist brings his award-winning new show and a barmy-sounding best-of to the Vodafone Comedy Carnival.

If you've ever pottered around Edinburgh in August you're likely to have spotted a wild-haired guy with a shopping trolley accosting random people on the street. Ok, so yes, that probably happens every other month too, but in August, the guy in question could well be Paul Currie, corralling potential punters towards his live extravaganzas.

The increasingly popular Northern Irishman has strong street-performance roots, so he knows how to pull a crowd together, inside or out: Currie's flyer-festooned trolley is one of leftfield comedy's most recognisable accessories. And in late October he may well be trundling it around Galway, as the admirable absurdist is doing two shows at Ireland's biggest comedy festival, the Vodafone Comedy Carnival, which begins on the 23rd October.

First up there's his latest hour, Hot Donkey, a brilliantly inventive but deeper-than-before affair that won a Comedians' Choice Award in Edinburgh, and was much admired by his fellow performers. It features a major life choice involving Muppets: more below. He'll also be doing a Greatest Hits hour, lovingly tossed-together from his five full-length shows, which should be brilliantly messy.

And he'll no doubt be mooching happily about the city, trolley or not, as it sounds like Galway at Carnival time is a must-visit for comedy types. Indeed, he's a bit bemused that we haven't, yet...

Galway sounds great, I've never been...

Oh come on mate, get it together! How old you? But no, I'm very lucky in my job that I can travel around, all over Ireland, the UK and Europe as well.

It's good for street acts isn't it, year-round?

Street performance is really big in Galway, it's one of the hubs, one of the good spots. You get a large influx of humanity there, that's the beauty of street performing: it's got nothing to do with funding or any of that bullshit, it's about leading a true nomadic lifestyle within the arts. That's why there are so many in Edinburgh every year - you go where the people are.

Do you still do regular street stuff?

Yeah, not in Edinburgh because it'd be too much, that and an indoor show, and flyering. I treat my flyering like street performing.

Do you take the famous trolley to every festival?

No, not all of them, but I'll go out and flyer anywhere, I don't mind. When I was in London recently, tickets weren't going great so I went out and flyered in whatever the park was. I have no qualms about flyering on the street, no ego about that.

You're used to doing the bucket speech too, which a lot of indoor comics struggle with when switching to pay-what-you-want shows.

It gives you a different philosophy to the art of performing, if you do it on the street. I find it quite sad that a lot of comedians are limited to an indoor venue, and only perform when they're on a stage with the spotlight on them. I just take it for granted that I've had that education and experience. I think it's a good thing, I encourage all stand-ups to give it a go. It's an extra layer of skin, and ammunition; how to handle a large group of people.

Having said that, you're doing two proper indoor gigs at Galway: have you done a best-of show before?

No, I'll just bring down all my props and have a fuck about, should be good fun. I've got five hours of material to go through, so that's essentially what I'll be bringing. It'll be me standing there looking in two suitcases, pulling stuff out - but no, there'll obviously be stuff set up as well. I'm really looking forward to it.

I haven't seen Hot Donkey yet, but heard bits of it - I was watching another act in your Fringe venue, and they ended up having to make droll references about this absolute riot going on next door.

Ahhh, I felt bad about that. We're actually going to get the noise bleed sorted out for next year. There were a few other acts having similar issues.

Hot Donkey has more of a through-thread than before; you're evolving over the years...

Yeah, a bit more personal with each show, talking about my mental health issues, things like that - but it's always been suggested in my shows. The first show I ever did, the finale is me eating a bowl of cornflakes and having a full breakdown.

It's very abstract my stuff, very impressionistic, so you take what you want from it - some people got that it was a breakdown, some people just thought it was random absurdist, surrealist, 'he's eating a bowl of milk.' But I'm getting more verbal about it, in a story narrative.

Am I right in thinking that this show's narrative involves Muppets?

That's the story that runs through it, me becoming a Jim Henson puppeteer, fulfilling that dream then realising that I was following the wrong path; I wasn't following my own path, as we all do. It was a big childhood dream of mine, and it came true, I'm very lucky that it did - but I wanted to use that [story] as a platform for why I went where I went with my comedy.

What did you actually do for Henson?

I worked on a few projects, the first one was [Sesame Street spin-off] Sesame Tree, it was filmed in Belfast and we kept the characters quite local but it was aired UK-wide on CBeebies.

They came to Belfast because Sesame Workshops - they're mainly all shot in cities where there are conflict resolution issues. So there's a South African one too, basically teaching kids how to live together, in some form of harmony. Which is a great thing, but ours, for whatever reason the BBC didn't commission it again after two seasons. Ironically, they just gave up on it - gave up on the peace process.

Like a few governments, over the years...

Kind of like they did with the border for Brexit, yeah, Northern Ireland got forgotten about again - 'oh yeah, you're part of the UK aren't you?' But yeah, the Henson company came over with Pajanimals, which was a really sweet little kids show, so I worked on that and another show called Big And Small. I think that was it.

It's odd to achieve your childhood goal early on - where do you go from there?

I was kind of doing stand-up at the same time, and it was getting in the way, because I wanted to do the Edinburgh Fringe and some of the filming clashed, some of the producers gave me ultimatums - I had to choose between this childhood dream and doing my own thing, my own art so to speak, follow my own path. So I basically just turned my back on the production company and focussed on Edinburgh really.

It's a good job you get good audiences now - if you said 'and I followed my dream!' and it's just two people and a dog in the audience, that'd be weirdly poignant.

Ha - yeah, I suppose! I've done it before, performed to two people and a dog. Well, not the dog - that'd be a luxury mate. I've had it in Edinburgh, crying into my bowl of cereal with two people sitting in front of me.

I'm happy performing in front of one person, I don't give a shit if it's a full room. I'm just grateful now - over the past two years - to be making any money in Edinburgh, unlike hundreds and hundreds of artists who've lost money; like myself over the years.

Are you fairly confident of doing well in Galway?

I've no idea - I'm happy to go out and flyer for it. I've played Galway a few times so I think I've picked up a bit of a following down there, I'm hoping it should be decent.

I imagine the city gets fairly festive that week?

Oh, it's great, Galway is such a buzz of a city anyway, it doesn't take too much to get it going as far as the arts goes. It's called the San Francisco of Ireland, very bohemian, very cool place, lovely people, great bars. A huge amount of artists have moved there now, and the audiences are flipping amazing.

I supported Stewart Lee there a couple of years ago for two nights, and that was amazing - it was great of Stewart to ask me to do it, I had no idea how I was going to go down with that audience, but it worked, they were lovely, really receptive.

It's a fantastic festival, and they put the effort in, you get to see all of Galway, which you don't get at every festival.

You won an award for Hot Donkey at the Fringe this year...

Yeah, in the last week, I won the Comedians' Choice Award. When I realised exactly what it was [it's voted for by fellow comics], I'm absolutely blown away that it was even nominated.

A lot of comics were raving about your show this year.

Ah that's nice - it's surreal because you're unaware of it, what impact your show's having, when you're on your own. I didn't have any PR or management, I've no agent, so when you're stuck in a bubble, right in the eye of the storm - other people would find out that reviewers or award people were in their shows, but I have no idea. I'm just out flyering, and doing the show.

Paul Currie's Pick of the Vodafone Comedy Carnival 2018:

Rhys Darby: Mystic Time Bird (Thursday October 25, Town Hall Theatre)

Phill Jupitus: Juplicity (Saturday October 27, The Mick Lally Theatre)

Sean Lock: various shows, including a bill with Currie, Joel Dommett and Danny O'Brien (Friday 28 October, Black Box Theatre)